Hawkeye Episode 3 Review
Credit to: Disney and Marvel StudiosWhat are the two hawks up to now?
Welcome back, y’all! This time around, we’re taking a look at Marvel’s Hawkeye, episode 3. Side note, I know Spider-Man: No Way Home is coming out this week. I got my ticket for Friday, so you guys are actually getting TWO reviews for that day. You’ll all get that review, don’t worry those den-dwelling heads of yours. I just thought of that. Would you guys like to be called that? Den Dwellers? Or Den Denizens? Den Denizens sounds neat. Sorry, the point is, you’ll get my review. Anyways! Without further ado, let’s jump right into it.
Episode three: Echoes
We start off in the year 2007, where we see a young Maya Lopez in class. Everything is quiet to her, as she’s actually a deaf character. She analyzes her classmates and her teacher, reading their lips and expressions. When Maya begins to write in her schoolbook, the teacher walks to her, thinking she isn’t paying attention, until she notices how quickly Maya filled out her work, smiling at her progress. We cut to a scene of her in her home, bonding with her father, who speaks to her using ASL while voicing out his words so she can learn to read lips. We jump to a scene after this, where Maya and her father talk as she gets her stuff ready for her martial arts class. He walks away after telling her that “Uncle” will take her home after class, and we see a man in a black suit approach her, pinching her cheek as he chuckles, though we never see his face. HMMM…. Anyways, we see the young Maya analyze her fellow students as they spar, and when she goes up next, the child she’s about to face looks down at her feet, noticing one of her legs is actually a prosthetic. He thinks she’s no threat, until she very quickly takes him down with a smile on her face. Jumping ahead a bit, we see an adult Maya parking her motorcycle in a garage. When she enters the garage, she sees the Ronin through the windows, killing her fellow gang members, and stabbing her father. Before she can reach Ronin, he jumps through the window, and she’s left comforting her dying father. Jumping to the present, we’re back with Clint and Kate, who are still tied up, waiting for the boss of the Tracksuits. They eventually find out just who that is, and it’s Maya. She interrogates the two, specifically about Ronin’s return and Kate’s involvement with the suit, but chokes Kate when she loses her temper. When her interpreter, Kazi, pulls her away to calm her down, Clint takes advantage of the moment by breaking free of his tape binds, running away from the gang and Maya. Clint gets away from the Tracksuits, but Maya catches up to him, and they engage in a really great hand to hand fight. Maya kicks out Clint’s hearing aid during the fight and stomps on it, destroying it. The fights continues until Clint gets his bow and arrows back, where he takes down Maya by trapping her with two arrows that cross against her neck. Clint frees Kate with a well placed shot that grazes Kazi’s ear enough to disorient him and free Kate from her tape, allowing her to disarm Kazi and take him down.
Clint and Kate run out of the warehouse, where they find a car outside for Clint to break into and hot-wire. The two peel out as the Tracksuits open fire on them and the car, safely avoiding the bullets. It’s here that we see a pretty funny car chase scene, where Kate tries making suggestions to Clint who still can’t hear her, but sometimes makes the exact same suggestions. We see Kate’s skills as an archer, but has funny moments where she uses certain trick arrows that she knows nothing about, including a plunger arrow which we’ll see later. She takes out the tracksuits with all kinds of arrows like an arrow that shoots a purple putty, an arrow that shoots out a bunch of wires to pull things in the area to it, an explosive arrow, acid arrows, and more. The chase comes to an end when Clint stops the car on a bridge, where he tells Kate to fire upwards. She releases her arrow, and Clint eyes it carefully, and he fires a Pym arrow. He lands the shot, and Kate’s arrow grows into a massive arrow, piercing the bridge, blocking it off. The duo make their escape by jumping off the bridge, firing a grapple arrow before Clint and Kate hold onto a train underneath the bridge with the handy plunger arrow. The two ride the train, where Clint calls Kate one of the world’s greatest archers, and repeats the same thing she says moments before, which is that they should walk the dog. Let’s wrap up a bit here. Kate helps Clint talk to his kids (since he can’t hear), they go get his hearing aid fixed while walking the dog, they go get some food at a diner where Kate designs him a suit on a napkin (which is just like his classic comic suit), and then they head to Kate’s mother’s apartment, where they do some research. Kate looks up information on Kazi on her mom’s laptop using the Bishop Security program, where they find a company called Sloan LTD, where Kazi is an “employee”. As Clint wanders around, Kate tries to dig up dirt on her stepfather Jack, but her account is immediately locked out. Very suspicious. When Kate notices that Clint isn’t behind her, we see Clint still wandering the apartment, where he’s suddenly stopped by Ronin’s sword aimed right in front of his neck. It’s none other than Jack, who tells him not to move. Jack’s a sneaky one, isn’t he?
I gotta say, this was a solid episode. I enjoyed exploring Maya’s character, I enjoyed seeing Clint and Kate work better as a team (even when they fumbled a bit), and I really enjoyed the action here. The only thing that was a slight fumble here, was the humor of the Tracksuits. They were better than the last episode, but they still feel out of place with the direction of the series in my opinion. Though, I do see an improvement. Overall, I had a great time with this episode. Very well done.
Final Thoughts
Well there you have it, y’all. Honestly, I see this series getting better and better, and that excites me. I already enjoy the portrayals of Kate and Clint in this series, I just needed everything else surrounding them to catch up, and now that we have characters like Maya and Kazi, and the improvement of the Tracksuits (so far), I’m feeling much more optimistic about this series. And I know I said before that it’s feeling too similar to the Netflix Daredevil series, but thankfully, this episode feels a lot more different from that series. We’re headed in a really good direction, and I can’t wait to see where this series goes. But what did you all think? Are you enjoying this series? Let me know on my Instagram and Twitter, and make sure you’re following me on both accounts to stay up to date on the latest news and reviews on your favorite entertainment topics. But that’s all from me, this has been The Wolf Den!
